cinematic portraiture

For this month’s Dollar Store Challenge, I went to all the dollar stores in town, walking up and down every aisle, trying to come up with a variety of ideas for possible shoots. My favorite store was the 99¢ Store off University Drive in Denton, because it had some of the strangest things. Most stores I looked at had a lot of what you’d expect to find, but the 99¢ Store had a mish-mash of items from several different decades, including some items that were completely obsolete or that no sensible person would ever want. My four main ideas were …

Interest in this challenge has been great. Though quite a few folks attempted the challenge, only these four photographers completed theirs in time. Congrats to those that completed the challenge. I hope you had a good time! Name: Adrian Samano Title: Fairy Floss Website: filmhauspictures.co ​Name: Matthew Granados Title: Summertime Website: mattsignphotography.tumblr.com Name: Samantha Castro & Danielle Sofield Title: The Great Gnome Hunt Website: facebook.com/pages/Yvonne-Photography Name: Wesley Kirk Title: Lucy Love’s Paper Heart Website: thevisionbeautiful.com Vote below of who took the best photo (regardless of the challenge), who came up with the most creative concept for their shoot, and who …

Ron Lechler is a good friend, a damn funny comedian, and an awesome collaborator. We’ve done shoots together, made films together, and make music together. So of course when he asked me to take his headshots, I was happy to help, because I knew for a fact they wouldn’t be your typical headshots. It’s hard to say what part of the shoot was more fun, when he thought out loud about the pros & cons of various vulgar gestures, when he showed off his Jack Nicholson impression, or when he screamed “FUCK!” at the top of his lungs in my …

Amanda Reyes is a talented actress and a wonderful filmmaker. I’ve worked with her before on films like Juniper, Adeline, and Zombie In A Shed. For her last semester at the University of North Texas, she got into the Advanced Film class as a director, and chose for her final student film to tell the story of what her family goes through with her older brother in jail. It’s a story very and dear to her heart, and I had given her feedback on some of her early drafts. When it came time for filming, she asked me to help …

For our upcoming Sweetheart Sessions, a day of boudoir shoots just in time for a perfect Valentine’s Day gift, we decided to do a trial run. We invited our favorite hair & make-up artist, Mallory Chokas, and our new model friend, Katy, to join us for an afternoon at the Locust Street Inn. It was a quaint little bed & breakfast, reminiscent of Gilmore Girls, and the room included an antique iron bed, a claw-footed tub, a mirrored vanity, and lots of windows letting in the best kind of light. While Mallory worked at helping Katy look like a Victoria’s …

For two years I had a note written in my phone that just said “Word Search Portrait”. Erin thought it was a dumb idea when I bought a sheet of tiny sticker letters at the craft store, and she thought it was an even dumber idea when she came home from class to see me painstakingly applying the last row of letters to my face as best I could in a grid formation. There are 9 words hidden on my face, all photography related. Can you find them all?

One of my models needed to cancel just a day before her shoot, which left me one model short from completing the challenge. Luckily when I posted to facebook about a shoot I had in mind, Katy saved the day by stepping in. I had only known Katy by seeing her up at school during my last semester, but she turned out to be the perfect model for this shoot. She wasn’t the least bit shy about being photographed in her underwear, her painting experience came in handy when discussing the best way to apply the paint, she had experience …

Amanda Reyes is one of the greatest actresses and most enthusiastic filmmakers I know. She’s just a wonderful person to collaborate with. When I asked her to be a part of Week of Models again, I instantly knew what I wanted to do for her shoot. I wanted to recreate photos of famous Hollywood actors, with her wearing a suit I bought her for one of our films together. She had done a similar shoot with our mutual friend Shelby Eckerty, but this time I wanted moodier lighting and fancier styling. And once again, Mallory Chokas did a fantastic job …

Last semester, Arielle wrote a romantic comedy short film called A Date With Death, that had a very 60’s style & soundtrack to it, about a girl who had a near death experience and fell in love with the Grim Reaper. So it felt natural that her shoot would be a pin up shoot, a Valentine’s Day themed pin up shoot to be exact, with classic 60’s love songs playing the whole time. We even had Mallory Chokas, who did the hair & make-up from A Date With Death, do Arielle’s hair & make-up. The first photo we based off …

Krystal won our photoshoot giveaway for November, and it took a while to find the right time for a shoot, since Krystal lives so far away. She & her fiance have also been wanting to hire us to shoot their wedding, and we’ve been looking forward to meeting them. Luckily the stars aligned and we were able to kill three birds with one stone; her free photoshoot, a shoot for Week of Models, and meet her & her fiance, who she brought along with her. When I decided on a photoshoot based off Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn, I had …